Text Messaging for Prospecting and Nurturing Leads

Why You Must Use Text Message Marketing to Effectively Reach Your Target Audience

Text message marketing is proving to be a simple, effective, and strangely underused tool.  Whether you call it mass texting, text blasts or message marketing, the benefits of using it are great.  Many industry leaders are now leaning towards this form of marketing over the more traditional, long-standing methods like emails and social media.   Text message marketing (SMS) is accessible, cost effective and easy to use.

Put yourself in the position of the modern-day consumer.  People are sent dozens of emails and social media notifications daily which means they lose impact and are often deleted without being acknowledged or opened. Unless you're using a good email builder to craft a unique and engaging email message, your email may not be very effective. Such is the frequency of these, many people disable notifications on their devices and check in their own time.  This means that what ever message they have been sent is out of date and potentially not relevant to them anymore.  This is where text message marketing comes in.

Because people send more messages through social media, text messages are less frequent than they used to be.  When a text is received there is a certain novelty to it which creates a level of curiosity in the person receiving it.

‘Curious people will open the message and at the very least skim read it. This makes it more likely for them to engage with your offering,’ says Daniel Richards, a business blogger at Write My X and 1day2write.

Is it cost effective?

The short answer is yes, and here is why. Text messaging marketing cost pennies compared to other means of marketing.  Some other methods of marketing can cost hundreds by comparison. As it is more likely to attract attention, the value for money is high too. Research has shown that a link within a text message is more likely to clicked on by up to 33%!

A text message does all the things other marketing tools do but without the need of additional hardware or complicated software packages.

How does it work?

To make this work effectively, you will need a database of potential clients you want to target. This obviously needs their contact number, but it is also useful to have their interests and the area they live in. This allows you to analyse which areas are most responsive and enables you to react and change your approach. You can be as personal as you want with this style of marketing. Some businesses send bulk messages to their target demographic and then personalize responses to those who reply. Remember, you are being very direct with this style of marketing as people are likely to have their cell phone in their pocket or hand.

Identify your target audience

A target audience is basically the people you want to attract to your business or service. There are different ways of identifying them which help you to focus your text message campaign.

Demographic

Quite simply looking mainly at gender and age. Some companies look at the level of education or employment status, but the main 2 areas tend to be gender and age.  Knowing who you are focusing on will allow you to create a suitable text messaging campaign. Senior women will need a very different style of a message to young males for example.

Geography

You can have great success by homing in on where people live and where they like to travel to. Keeping it local and topical are the keys to success here. Snowsuit sales offers will not be very appealing in Nevada.

Socio-economic status

This comes from knowing your brand and where you sit in the market. Are you luxury, budget or somewhere between the two? Once you have established this, then you can target people accordingly. Those who live on a tight budget will not be interested in purchasing a yacht and those living the life of luxury will not be looking for coupons.

Legal Considerations

All text messaging campaigns must be aware of the guidelines set out by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). These include transmissions and gaining consent from the user. One simple way to establish consent is to send an initial message with a keyword and a number to reply to. Something as simple as texting YES to 48473 to learn more would show that permission has been granted.

For those who don’t reply, simply remove them from your database. On the flip side of this, it is good practice to add an opt-out option.  This stops the user from being messaged again and also allows you to channel your efforts to the clients who are interested.

 Less is more

The purpose of your messages should be to add value to someone’s life and not to simply bombard them with a constant barrage of texts. This will lead to your number being blocked from their device. Sending messages with a time restricted offer or a limited offer will encourage action to be taken and give the user a feeling of value. They will assume that this is a personal offer to them based on messages being less frequent.   Receiving the same sales offer every day devalues it and makes it less appealing.

‘Consider when in the day you are going to send your messages. Try to keep these as consistent as possible so that you don’t come across as intrusive,’ advises Sophie Louise, a highly respected technical writer at Originwritings and Britstudent. ‘It is recommended to send text messages during business hours.’

If you need inspiration, check out these sales text message examples from Open Phone.

The beauty of using text messages to market yourself is that you can almost guarantee that the user will receive the information straight away. If their phone is with them, they will see your message quickly. Marketing through social media needs an app to be installed or for the user to access a website. A text is on their phone straight away, all cell phones have a messages function as standard.

It is also important to remember that the style of massage can be varied hugely. Reminders, payment requests and special offers can all be sent via text with minimal effort for the user or sender.